UN Digital ID

Background

The UN Digital ID is a flagship digital transformation project under the sponsorship of the High-Level Committee on Management (HLCM) that is delivering on the Secretary-General’s UN 2.0 data-driven transformation vision.

The UN Digital ID is an universal and easy to use system-wide identity for each United Nations staff, from onboarding to retirement. Having a unique identification across the UN system reduces data fragmentation and duplication, with the potential to simplify and streamline processes and transactions across all business functions between staff and organizations, and also between UN organizations themselves. As a data exchange platform, the UN Digital ID will allow staff from participating organizations to share any of their HR and other personal information with complete visibility, consent and security.

The initiative started as a staff-led initiative and winning idea of the Reimagine the UN Together Challenge. Its initial Terms of Reference (ToR) was approved by the High-Level Committee on Management at its 42nd Session in October 2021. The ToR has been updated with the approved Programme Charter as of 13 July 2023, which updates the timeline, scope and budget of the UN Digital ID Programme.

The Chair of the High-Level Committee on Management serves as the Chair and Executive Sponsor of the Executive Steering Committee of the UN Digital ID. Six sponsoring organizations signed up to be part of the first phase – UN Secretariat, UNDP, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNJSPF, WFP, with UNICC as the technology solution provider. The solution is intended to be scaled to other organizations at a later stage.

Current state of play

At its 46th session, the HLCM received an update on the initiative, which was starting on the product development phase for its first selected use case focused on pension (UN Digital ID as the single data interface between UNJSPF and its member organizations). Since then, each sponsoring organization has committed to the go-live timeline, with the technical go-live scheduled in mid-April starting with three organizations – UNDP, UNJSPF, and WFP. The other three organizations are to follow shortly after. The aim is to deliver a strong first product that can easily scaled to more organizations and use cases across the UN system.

The Digital ID is developed with the following key principles in mind: